Seriously, have you? It’s fun and super easy and you get some really quick results. Definitely something you can do with kids. It produces a long chain of stockinette-like loose stitches that remind me of what used to come out of that weird plastic crochet-tube thing we were given as kids. Remember? Maybe not.
Anyway, if you’d like to try it, get yourself some yarn. A huge chunky knit will give you the best results, but I am planning on felting my strings so I’m going with some merino wool.
Find the end and drape it over the space between your thumb and forefinger. You may need your thumb to hold that tail in place for the first few rows, but you can let it go after that.
Take the yarn and bring it in front of your index finger, behind your middle finger, in front of your ring finger, and around behind your little finger.
Then bring it in front of your little finger, behind your ring finger, and so on, until you’ve woven it back to the beginning.
Then pull it around your index finger and do that again, so you end up with two loops of yarn on each finger.
Now take the lower loop on your little finger and pull it up and over the upper loop.
Repeat that with all your other fingers until you’re left with one loop on each one.
Take another full pass with your yarn, in, out, in, alternating on the way back.
Then pull the lower loop over the upper loop again on each finger. Keep going. Eventually something like this will start coming off the back of your hand. It will look a bit different depending on the size of your fingers, the tension and thickness of the yarn, and all that jazz.
If you get tired or bored while you’re doing this or you need to do something else, just jab a pencil through your loops and put it down. Come back to it later.
When you’ve got a chain as long as you want it to be, you can cast off. After doing your last row of loops, leaving you with one row only of loops on each finger, take the loop on your little finger and put it above the loop on your ring finger.
Pull the lower loop on your ring finger up and over the one you just added.
Take the loop that is left and put that onto your middle finger.
Hook the lower one up and over, and put the remaining loop onto your index finger.
Hook the lower one up and over and then you’re left with one loop!
Then it’s a simple matter to thread the end of your yarn through and tie a knot.
This is a finished chain. You’ll note I’ve reinforced the knots at both the beginning and end. Next to it is one that I felted by running through the wash and then the dryer.
Here’s a closeup of the loose weave of the chain I made versus the tight string after it’s felted. Dog hair may or may not be included.
Here’s a very long chain I made as well. You can see how easy it would be, especially with a chunkier yarn, to sew the chain together to form a block, a blanket, or a rug. Or whatever. I’m still debating what I am going to do with mine, but I’ll keep you posted.
Ali Does It Herself 